


Pine Away

by rhiannonhero



Category: Queer as Folk (US) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-17
Updated: 2004-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:03:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhiannonhero/pseuds/rhiannonhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong>Disclaimer: </strong> All events described in this story are entirely fictitious. The author does not<br/>pretend to know the actors whose physical appearance and general circumstances<br/>are being exploited herein for fantasy fodder and amusement. Insult or harm<br/>is not intended, and no actual actors were harmed in the making of the fic.<br/>If you can not seperate fantasy from reality, read no further.</p><p>Thanks so much to wrenlet for the<br/>super fast beta. Any lingering mistakes are mine alone.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Pine Away

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** All events described in this story are entirely fictitious. The author does not  
>  pretend to know the actors whose physical appearance and general circumstances  
> are being exploited herein for fantasy fodder and amusement. Insult or harm  
> is not intended, and no actual actors were harmed in the making of the fic.  
> If you can not seperate fantasy from reality, read no further.
> 
> Thanks so much to wrenlet for the  
> super fast beta. Any lingering mistakes are mine alone.

You know what sucks? Discovering ten years too late that you were  
in love with your co-star.

You know what sucks even more? Figuring out that you’re still  
in love with him.

I was feeling morbid and old, drunk on whiskey that really wasn’t  
all that good. The strange and familiar longing was so strong that  
I sat down on the couch, cradling my head in my hands. I could never  
place it before, could never really find what I missed down to my  
bones. For years I told myself it was Jessica, or Miria. Then after  
my mom died, I told myself that I was missing my mother.

But that night, I lifted my head from my hands and locked my eyes  
on the screen flickering with re-runs of Queer As Folk. The show  
that I’d starred in—once upon a time, long, long ago.

In a kingdom far, far away.

In the land where Prince Brian was wooed and tamed by his princess.

I smiled a little at the thought of Justin being Brian’s  
princess, but, really, he was, so—yeah. Somehow, though, I  
doubted either character would appreciate the analogy. I blamed  
the liquor.

And that’s when it hit me hard, like a freight train to the  
gut. It wasn’t Jessica or Miria and it sure as hell wasn’t  
my mom. I missed _him_.

I missed Randy.

With every fiber in my being I missed him. A soul deep yearning  
that had been blindsiding me for years, breaking up relationships  
that were meaningless because, oh God, I’d given my heart  
away years ago and never even knew that it was missing. All those  
rumors that I was a heartless, twat-seeking bastard weren’t  
too far off the mark. I’d been missing the core of me for  
a long, long time. Wow, that was pretty damn melodramatic. Again,  
I blamed the liquor.

And he was with someone now, all settled down in a lovely little  
villa in the hills above Malibu. It had been, what? Two years since  
I’d seen him? Ten months since I’d talked to him?

I checked the clock. Two oh eight a.m. Not the best time to call  
someone, really. He was probably asleep, snuggled up next to his  
partner. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I suddenly recalled  
the scent of his neck. It was a scent that only a lover would know.  
But we’d never been lovers, just friends.

Just friends who made out in front of a small group of people while  
wearing next to nothing at least once a week for six to four months  
of the year.

I knew things about him that no friend would know. I knew how he  
tasted, how his breath felt against my stomach, how his soft, firm  
hands felt tugging at my shoulders, in my hair, pulling me down  
for fierce kisses that I returned in kind. Friends usually don’t  
know that sort of thing about one another.

So, the phone. I could call. He’d be kind of pissy at first,  
but he’d get over it.

But what the hell was I going to say? Hey, it’s me, Gale.  
I just realized I’m in love with you? Uh huh.

Well, really, on second thought, that’s not a bad opening.  
It held all of the makings of good drama—surprise, revelation,  
potential disaster. Yeah, really, why not? Heh. So, yeah, that was  
the liquor, too.

But I did it. I actually picked up the phone and fucking called  
him. He sounded disoriented, his voice deep and scratchy, sexy in  
a way that made me ache.

“Hey, it’s me Gale.”

“Gale? It’s two in the morning. Is everything okay?”

“No. Not really.”

I could hear him rustling around and the soft murmur of a masculine  
voice to which he whispered, “It’s Gale. Go back to  
sleep.” And then, "What’s going on? Are you okay?”

He sounded more alert now. So, I took a deep breath and said, “I  
just figured out that I’m in love with you.”

Silence.

More silence.

I downed the rest of my glass of whiskey. Fucking liquor.

“Is this a joke?”

“Uh…” I stared at the screen, Brian and Justin  
kissing, me and Randy kissing. “Should I say yes?”

Silence.

“Shit. Listen, hold on. I can’t talk about this here.”

He put me on hold without asking and I imagined him rolling out  
of bed naked, or maybe just in his underwear, saying over his shoulder  
to the guy he’d shared his life with for the last year, “Gale’s  
having an identity crisis. I’ll be back soon.”

I snorted at the fantasy. I poured another glass of whiskey and  
held it up to the light. Okay, so far, so good, man. I’d just  
told Randy that I was in love with him and now I was waiting for  
him to come back to the phone.

Wait a minute.

Fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. I’d just told Randy that I _loved_  
him and now I was _waiting_ for him to come back to the phone?  
Had I gone insane? Fucking liquor! Fucking idiot! What the fuck  
was I doing?

I pressed the disconnect button and stared at the phone in my hand.  
I started to shake, my pulse racing in my throat, pounding in my  
ears. And, shit, the phone was ringing. I stared at it. The phone  
was _ringing_. That was Randy, calling me back because I’d  
called him at _two in the fucking morning_ to announce that  
I was in love with him.

I buried the phone under the cushions of the sofa and willed it  
to stop making that godawful noise, willed time to reverse and unravel  
the mess that I’d made of it all. It’d been ten years!  
What the hell was I thinking? He was with someone! And as for me,  
I was, ostensibly straight, well, straight-ish. And I was in love  
with him. Still.

The answering service picked up and I scrambled off the couch to  
turn off the screening speaker I’d left on earlier. Yes, earlier  
when I wasn’t so drunk, but still too lazy to even look at  
the caller ID on the phone.

Randy’s voice cut through the room, low and worried, “Gale?  
If you can hear this, pick up the phone.” There was a long  
moment of silence as he waited. “Please, Gale. We should talk  
about this. Pick up the phone.”

I stopped in the middle of the room, my legs quivering and my hands  
trembling so hard that I pressed them together in an attempt to  
gain some control. The call disconnected and I sank down to the  
floor, burying my face in knees.

I rocked back and forth, the dark of the room sinking into me as  
I shivered alone on the floor.

The phone started ringing again. I shook my head and felt the tears  
welling in my eyes. I was the biggest fucking idiot ever. Here I  
was in a nice house in Beverly Hills, living the dream, with the  
car and the women and the career that wouldn’t quit, despite  
my many short-comings. And what was I doing? Fucking coming out  
of the closet at this late date? And over a guy who was happily  
settled down with someone? And who had never, ever come onto me?  
Well not since said guy was rebuffed early in the first season when  
he’d made a small pass.

The answering service picked up and again Randy’s voice filled  
the room. “Gale, listen, it’s two in the morning. I’m  
sitting here in my office, shivering and worried. Pick up the goddamn  
phone.” Silence. “Gale, this is pissing me off. You  
can’t do this to me. You can’t call me in the middle  
of the night and shake up my world and then just run the fuck away.”  
Silence. Randy came back, his voice more contrite. “I’m  
sorry. Gale, come on, don’t make me beg.”

I lifted my head and turned toward the answering service’s  
speaker as though Randy would be standing right there.

“Because I will beg, Gale. If you make me.” A mixture  
of desperation and seduction in his voice.

A long moment passed and for a second I thought he’d hung  
up, but then I heard his deep sigh. I shifted on to my hands and  
knees, crawled over to the couch and dug the phone out of the cushions.  
I hesitated for another few seconds before I answered. Even so,  
I didn’t have any words, not even a hello. I just waited.

“Gale.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you drunk?”

I crawled up onto the couch and, still holding the phone to my  
ear, buried my head beneath a pillow. “Yeah.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change things.”  
I squeezed my eyes closed and bit my lower lip. Really, I tended  
to make a lot of poor choices when I was drunk. I really might want  
to give that some thought. Maybe I should swear off drinking forever.

“Actually, it does. Would you have called me if you were  
sober?”

“No.” I could answer that one honestly and without  
hesitation. I knew that there was no way in hell I would’ve  
been this stupid if I’d been sober.

“Then why did you call now?” The rustle of fabric over  
fabric sifted through the phone lines and I imagined Randy pulling  
a warm, fuzzy blanket over himself, stretched out on that worn old  
sofa in his office.

“Because I just figured it out. Just now. I realized.”  
I felt my chest grow tight and I groaned. “I don’t feel  
so good.”

“Are you going to throw up?”

“No. It’s my chest. Feels like I can’t breathe.”

“You’re freaking out, Gale. You need to relax. It’s  
going to be okay.”

“Ha!” I snorted and sat up, throwing the pillow across  
the room. “Easy for you to say! You’re not the one having  
an emotional breakdown because you realized that you’re in  
love with your best friend, who, by the way, I didn’t even  
know I considered to be my best friend until tonight.” I took  
a tight breath and continued. “You’re not the one who  
is ten years away from when he should have realized that he wasn’t  
as straight as he thought. You’re not the one who’s  
sitting alone in an empty house, drunk and scared.”

Randy’s voice was quiet. “No, I’m not. But I  
am the guy who’s just received the phone call that he spent  
eight years of his life waiting for until he finally gave up. I’m  
the guy who has a lover in the next room waiting for me to return  
to bed when the only thing I want to do right now is walk out of  
the house, get in my car and go to you. I’m the guy who just  
woke up in a totally different world than the one he went to sleep  
in.”

I didn’t know what to say. I said the only thing I could  
think of. “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Will you come to me?”

Randy made a small strangling sound. “God. Do you know how  
long I’ve waited to hear those words? Do you have any idea?  
And now of all times. Jesus, you have shit for timing.”

“I’m sorry.” I glanced over at the television.  
Emmett and Ted. Scott and Peter. I missed them, too. But there was  
no yearning, just friendly missing. My heart was no longer racing.  
It rested in my chest with a heavy sorrow of acknowledged loss.  
“I should go. I shouldn’t have called. I don’t  
know what I was thinking.”

Randy asked, “Do you still want me to come over?”

I started to shake all over again. “Yes,” I whispered.

“Give me an hour. I’ll be there. I promise.”

 

He smelled just the way I remembered, tasted the same, too.

It was comfort. And the ache of loneliness in my heart that I’d  
felt for years was gone. I hadn’t known what to expect when  
he arrived. I’d nearly lost my mind in the time between hanging  
up the phone and the sound of his car on the drive. I can’t  
even imagine what I looked like when I flung the door open, bedraggled  
and haggard, that’s for sure. Wild-eyed and psychotic, possibly.

Randy looked like he had just rolled out of bed, which he had,  
I suppose. His hair mussed up and misbehaving. He looked amazing.

I stood staring at him, the cool night air drifting into the house.  
Randy smiled, took my hand, pushed me into the house and closed  
the door behind us. I think I was still shaking at that point, but  
I’m not sure.

“You look like hell.”

“I know.” I scrubbed my free hand over my face, savoring  
the feel of his fingers in mine. It’d been a long time. “It’s  
been a fucked up night.”

And he was in my arms. I pulled him close and held on tight. I  
don’t know how long we stood in the foyer by the front door  
just holding on like that, but it didn’t seem long enough.  
I nestled my face into the crook of his neck and breathed in his  
scent, kissed him there and tasted his skin.

Nothing too overt happened that night. After all, Randy was in  
a committed relationship and my sudden emotional breakdown didn’t  
really inspire confidence in either of us that there was potential  
for something more than comfort between us. It wasn’t enough  
to jeopardize all that he had when I might wake up the next morning,  
stone cold sober, and freaking out because Randy was naked in my  
bed.

Of course, it didn’t happen that way at all.

I woke up and, yeah, I was in shock for minute because he was there,  
curled up on his side, fully dressed and one hand clenching the  
front of my t-shirt, as though afraid that I was going to disappear.  
Probably afraid that he’d wake up and I’d have run away.  
And I might have if he hadn’t been awake, too.

“Hey.”

I actually felt myself blush as the prior night rushed over me  
in a cascade of humiliation. The phone call, the freak out, the  
tears. God. I’d fucking cried. Shit.

“Hey.” My voice sounded like shit, too. So, really,  
it was just shit all around.

Randy smiled. Well, maybe not so shitty. Randy was gorgeous in  
the morning with sleep heavy eyes and messy hair. He stretched and  
sat up, looking around the room.

“I need to make a phone call. I’m sure David’s  
really worried right about now.”

“Yeah. Um, here.” I reached to the phone beside the  
bed and handed it over. “I’m going to get in the shower.”

Randy frowned a little but took the phone and just said, “Okay.”

I didn’t want to hear him talking to his boyfriend, because,  
really this was the worst thing that could have come of last night.  
Worse even than Randy not wanting to be friends any more. Ending  
up alone, anyway, after risking so much. So what if I’d been  
drunk when I risked it. Sometimes people need liquid courage to  
take that leap of faith. But, Jesus, wasn’t there supposed  
to be something there to catch me?

I’d thought so last night when Randy arrived, but now—  
“Gale?” Randy was just outside the door. “I’m  
coming in.”

“Okay.” Hell, it’s not like he hadn’t seen  
it all before. Many times. Of course that was years ago and I was  
much younger then—”Uh, wait.”

Randy opened the shower door and said, “What?”

“Never mind.”

“I’ve seen it all before, you know.”

“I know.” I lathered and poured shampoo into my hand  
while Randy watched. I was usually more talkative than this with  
him, more goofy, but how could I make jokes right now? Maybe later.  
Maybe sometime in the future this would all seem very funny. We’d  
be at a Queer As Folk reunion party and he’d laugh and say,  
“Remember that time you called me in the middle of the night,  
drunk off your ass, to profess your undying love for me?”  
And I’d laugh, too, and all the others would chuckle and toast  
my stupidity.

I could see it all. But right now, it wasn’t funny.

“So, are you freaking out?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Because it kind of looks like a freak out from where I’m  
standing.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Randy pulled his t-shirt off and stripped out of his pants, pulling  
off his socks before stepping into the shower with me.

Hard. Now. Instantly.

God, that was embarrassing. Randy lifted a brow and said, “Well,  
that’s different. But I guess there aren’t four people  
standing around us with cameras.”

At that moment, I wasn’t sure that would have mattered anyway.  
“Yeah.” I turned my back on him and tried to finish  
my shower.

“Is this making you uncomfortable?” Randy’s voice  
was gravelly again, like it had been last night when we’d  
made out and nearly gotten off by humping against one another.

“Yes. I’m hard as a motherfucker and I know you don’t  
plan to do anything about it, so, yeah, I’m a little uncomfortable.”

Oh, good. The joking was back online. It appeared that I was going  
to be okay.

Randy chuckled. “Join the crowd.”

A glance over my shoulder showed that he was hard, too. Fuck. Stupid,  
stupid, stupid. Instinct kicked in—  
Wet skin rushed beneath under my hands as I pushed him against the  
shower wall. He looked a little shocked, but he didn’t stop  
me and when we kissed, it just happened. There was no way to stop  
it because there had always been something between us, call it chemistry,  
call it destiny, call it whatever you want. And, no, there was no  
liquor to blame for that obviously mushy line of thinking.

But how can I be held responsible for my thoughts when my brain  
had _turned_ to mush. Randy took over somewhere mid-kiss;  
his dominant side that had always intrigued me, the intensity that  
peered out from his eyes was now focused on my body and, God, this  
wasn’t going to last long at all. His fist, slick with soap,  
jerked my cock and I clung to him as I came. He’s stronger  
than he looks and he helped me keep my feet when my knees gave out.

Ten years. Fuck. Too long.

I gripped his cock and his hand covered mine, guiding me to the  
rhythm that he liked and when he arched his neck back with pleasure  
I sucked a red mark into the tender curve.

“Oh, fuck!” He trembled in my arms and I felt the slight  
swell of his cock before it pulsed between us.

It ended with more kissing and a nearly silent washing of one another,  
Randy soaping my back and me shampooing his hair. Comfortable, for  
some strange reason. Maybe it was because I wasn’t a total  
guy on guy virgin, like I said, I identified as ‘straight-ish’,  
or maybe it was just that it was Randy and I’d always, always  
been comfortable being naked with him, almost from the beginning.

It was over a quiet breakfast that I finally asked, “What  
did you tell your boyfriend?”

Randy shrugged and didn’t meet my eyes. “Just told  
him that I needed to be with you right now.” He took another  
bite of cereal and said around a mouthful. “He’s smart,  
though. He’s guessed what happened. Knowing David, he’s  
probably packing right now. He’s a princess like that.”

I nodded and said, “I was thinking last night, when I was  
really drunk that Justin was the princess to Brian’s prince.”

Randy laughed and said, “Justin takes offense to that.”

“I thought he might.”

“So, I’m expecting to go home to a deserted house and  
I’m betting that my evening will be spent fielding phone calls  
from my now ex-boyfriend. What are your plans?”

I didn’t know. “Well, I was thinking that maybe, later,  
after you’ve gone home, I could call you up, really drunk  
and tell you that I love you.”

Randy put his spoon down and looked at me. “And do you?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” He looked me in the eye as he said it.

I took a deep breath and told my pounding heart to go to hell.  
“Then I do. I always have. I think I always will.”

“Romantic.” Randy smiled almost shyly and then shrugged  
it off. “So, maybe tonight you could skip the phone call and  
the drunk part. Maybe you could just come over and tell me in person  
that you love me.”

“I don’t know. Maybe _you_ should go home, get  
really drunk and call _me_ to tell _me_ that you love  
me.”

Randy smiled brilliantly. “I do. I love you.”

“Oh. Well, okay then.” I took another bite of my eggs.  
“You know what sucks?”

“What?”

“Figuring out ten years too late that you were in love with  
your co-star.” I frowned. “Ten years. It’s a long  
time to be in denial.”

Randy stood up and walked around the table, knelt down by my side  
and whispered as he pulled me in for a kiss, “I don’t  
know. It seems like maybe it was just in time.”

 

 **The End**

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for the odd formatting. The import came in this way due to the site I have it archived at, and I would have had to delete the return at the end of every sentence to make it format the way I would have preferred. Laziness won out.


End file.
